In this tiny fraction of a school month we wrapped up Hamlet and worked on a collaborative review as one big team!!
Oh, Hamlet. I'm still not 100% satisfied with my hour's theme statement. I don't think the other hours had it quite right, either. I plan to spend some time re-thinking it independently after finals and before the summary/analysis blog is due. The loss of identity part seems solid, but it's what that causes that I don't know yet. My hour kept wanting to say it's an opposition to providence, which just doesn't seem right to me. Its more big picture than that, and providence is so religion-specific. It's more like Hamlet doubted himself, and so lost his direction and ultimately his conscience. I'm not sure... Any opinions are welcomed!
Personally I think an AP Lit chat roulette review collaboration would be pretty great, so we wouldn't miss seeing each other as we studied together from the comfort of our own homes. How exciting!
Surprisingly, the collab review was super productive. I was impressed by how organized it turned out! With that many students working on it, it should have been more scattered. The thing is, though, that it's so lengthy and wordy. It has tons of great info, but I'd prefer it simplified into a study format. For example, when studying comp physics I saw that my notes read "Johannes Kepler, German, used Tycho Brahe's data and found that planets move in elliptical orbits, not circular." But that' too wordy so on my hand-made study guide I wrote "Kepler = elliptical orbits." I kind of wish our lit study guide was simplified that way. We already learned the material in-depth. The review should be simply memory-jogging and solidifying relationships between topics. Because studying from it is going to take so long...
Dreading finals more than usual this year...
What about you guys?
Mary,
ReplyDeleteI now see why you used a different theme statement than what we came up with in class. Forgo my previous comments. I personally believe that opposing Providence and usurpation is a huge part of Hamlet and has to be part of the theme statement because it moves beyond just the character of Hamlet with his identity issues, and it has that “sticky” feeling where it connects to everything in the whole play. But I also see where you are coming from with Hamlet doubting himself and then everything going to Hell (to Elsinore? Hmmm...). I also agree that the review was waaaay to long to effectively study from, but it was really the making and editing it that helped me most. I barely looked at the parts I had helped make while studying because I already had remembered from writing it up. And we all know why AP Lit chat roulette would ultimately fail… Some evil pedophile stalker will clearly hack in and try to talk literature with all of us poor, impressionable, and gullible kids. Protect our youth, keep chat roulette out of schools!
I felt the same way about my class' theme statement! And I completely see where you're coming from about Providence being too narrow and (as you perfectly put) "religion-specific." That is why when I chose to write about my own theme statement I wrote about control because when you step back and look at Providence I think it is really about God controlling the lives of others. So, I thought that Hamlet's struggle was regarding who should control his life himself, others or God. I agree that the forty-six page review was definitely too lengthy to effectively study from, but I also agree with Max, in that having us write it at least mandated us to look over the material again. I really like the example you gave regarding studying from notes in your Physics class -- awesome work relating this class to another one! One thing I wish you would have elaborated on a bit is trying to think of a central question in Hamlet and then trying to pick six central scenes correlating to your question before launching into your discussion about the theme statement.
ReplyDeleteMary,
ReplyDeleteLike you and Sierra, I also changed the theme statement a little bit and wrote about control. Sometimes trying to come up with a statement that fits the ideas of everyone in the class is impossible and it's inevitable that some people disagree. Like you, I was also surprised at how well the collaborative review worked out. I also agree that it was a little long... I ended up printing all 46 pages of it. It definitely helped though! The only thing I think you could've delved more into was the central question of the piece. I remember my class had to come up with six scenes that had to do with the question, "Will Hamlet ever relinquish control?" and it really helped me with my theme statement.